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January 10, 2026, the 10th day of 2026 Be Sure of Your Salvation or Make it Sure Too many people claim the name pf Christ, calling themselves Christians, while speaking and acting against God's comm... View MoreJanuary 10, 2026, the 10th day of 2026 Be Sure of Your Salvation or Make it Sure Too many people claim the name pf Christ, calling themselves Christians, while speaking and acting against God's commands. Besides giving true Christians a bad name, they will find themselves lost in the end, if they don't wake up before then. That is why every now and then we need to take stock of what we believe and if what we believe lines up with the Bible. It would be terrible to hear the words that will be spoken to every false convert. "I never knew you." And " Depart from Me." “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in Heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’" Matthew 7:21-23 When we repent and surrender our life to Jesus as our Lord and Master, our King, it is the beginning of a new life, but to get to that place we need to be sure we have not skipped over any step. However we arrived at it, at some point came the conviction of sin. The knowledge of our sinful nature had awakened in us, and we sought out the cleansing that only comes from Jesus. Jesus paid the price for our salvation, but it is not automatic. We must receive that payment by following Him. And we cannot follow Him if we refuse to repent of our sins and turn from our sinful life. We must turn away from following after our sinful nature if we want to follow Jesus. In following Jesus we must acknowledge Him as our Lord and Master, our King. I use "our Lord and Master, our King", because we need to accept the rule of Jesus over us, His dominion over us. Some people do not equate this with the term Lord, because they don't have any authority like a Lord over them. Master denotes that authority to more people, and of course Jesus is King, but needs to be our King as well. In surrender we accept that Jesus rules over us. We do not rule over Him. Jesus can order us. We do not order Jesus. Jesus can issue commands to us. We cannot issue commands to Him. In surrendering we give ourselves fully and completely to Jesus, so He can wash us clean and make us a new creation. Only then are we a place His presence can dwell in, as our Lord and Master, our King. The biggest stumbling block for many is pride, not wanting to accept that we need a Saviour. Since we can always find someone who is worse than us, we tend to think that we are good enough. But others are not the measure God measures us with. We stand alone before God, with our sinful self bearing witness against us. Another stumbling block is the aspect of completely surrendering our life to Jesus, holding nothing back. In the act of surrender we acknowledge His ownership of us. We have been bought and are no longer our own. And our course that including surrendering our physical being to Him, including our sexuality. Obviously this is a big problem for many with the "my body" mentality. But this has been an issue in every age of this world as seen through history. And it had to be addressed to the early Christians as well, as seen in the verses below. "Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit Who is in you, Whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s." I Corinthians 6:18-20 Surrendering the right of control is hard, but is crucial for salvation because Jesus will not take partial custody of us. It is all or nothing. Many a false convert believed that they could say that they were sorry for their sins and repeat words that they didn't fully understand, as if that were fine. But it is anything but fine. God sees the heart and knows our intentions, even if we hide them from ourselves. Without understanding what we are doing, we will falter when we are expected to do what we agreed to do, but didn't imagine God actually expecting us to do. It is like those who make marriage vows to stay together whether richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, but then divorce when they are actually expected to live with poorer and/or deal with the spouse's sickness. They may believe they will remain faithful and devoted to their spouse who fills them with passionate love at the time of the wedding. But time and trials require commitment, not emotions that turn cold in the face of hardships. It is the same for those caught up in emotional fervor at a Christian concert, a revival meeting or really good preaching. If it is not something more than our emotions being touched, the commitment will fade away when our emotions cool down. We need to understand that even though God offers forgiveness and eternal life, this earthly life may be very rough. If we do not understand that we will be unprepared when it happens, especially since in salvation we become an enemy of Satan, who is a very sore loser. If we think we are signing up for good times, happy and healthy times, filled to overflowing with financial blessing, we are believing wrongly. And it will lead to a bad outcome when times get tough. The way of Jesus is the way of the cross, for every one of His followers. It won't always be the worst case scenario, but we better be prepared that it just might be. Stay strong! Be sure of your salvation or make it sure. NAN

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